(When No One)
a soft thing often
hopes to be touched
(the temptation to take a soft
thing in your palm
& when no one is looking,
check to see that it’s really
so soft)
to tender something
delicate (when no one is looking)
what great responsibility
(the temptation to take a soft
thing in your palm
& spend a finger over it,
thinking just: how soft, how
fragile) the temptation
to take the soft thing between
a finger and thumb
and apply some pressure
(just some)
& when it breaks, pretend
it was never soft
(the temptation to then say)
I didn’t know my own strength
ABOUT THE POET
Sonja Vitow (she/they) is a queer Jewish teacher living in the Jamaica Plain
neighborhood of Boston, where they are the editor of a small literary magazine
called
The Knicknackery and in charge of the soap enterprise I'd Lather Not. They
received
their MFA in creative writing from Emerson College in 2013, and are
currently
pursuing their PhD in human sexuality from Widener University. Some
of their
work can be found in Rattle, Harvard Review, Fugue Journal, The Rumpus,
and Carve
Magazine, or at SonjaVitow.com.
ABOUT SUGAR HOUSE REVIEW
We loved reading the work that we’ve published (clearly), and we want an
opportunity to better hear our contributors. We're featuring audio recordings of
poems from our pages, read by the poet. This an open invitation to all contributors
from any of our issues, we were delighted to print your work, now we’re eager to
hear it.
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